Traveller is the name of the overall game. MegaTraveller
is the name of this rules set, and is used to differentiate it from
the 10 years of development and earlier editions that preceded it.

- MegaTraveller Players' Manual, 1987

I like Traveller, but it does have some terrible flaws.

The Traveller background is the brainchild of Marc W Miller. It seems
like he's tried hard to make a sensible and consistent universe to play
an SF game in. Speeds of travel and communication have been worked out
and applied consistently. Technological developments have been thought
through and their obvious applications have been put into the game. Where
people might resist the introduction of certain forms of technology
(eg. true artificial intelligence or cyborging), the opinions
formed in society and the resulting political movements are described.
It's clearly a feat of world creation from someone who cares enough to
try to do it right.

But for all this, there are some horrific oversights. Most staggering
of all is that space is flat. Maps of Miller's universe have only two
dimensions. I suppose three-dimensional maps would be impractical. But
still, it makes the idea that this is supposed to be in any way like
real space utterly laughable.

Other than that, the background falls down by incorporating a lot of
the standard science fiction cliches. Almost all humans are white - why?
Most alien intelligent races, which are of non-terran origin, are
humanoid - why?

These future humans can have psionic abilities that are
clearly demonstrable. There is an explanation for this: humans met a
psionic alien race, the Droyne, who taught humans to use there own
innate psionic potential. Human psionics could then teach other
talented humans. But this is a feeble bullshit explanation. This
psionics business is just another typical SF cliche that's been tacked
on for no good reason.

THE RULES SYSTEM

Again, the rules system has a lot of good ideas, but it's deeply
flawed in many ways. One big problem is that the writing is
often very unclear. There are sections which I've read time and time
again, and I can't be sure exactly what they mean. Also, it's often
necessary to flip between tables on different pages to work things out.

For instance, suppose I'm firing a rifle at a target 23 metres away.
What is my chance of hitting? First I have to consult the Range Table on
P74 to find that 23m is in the Medium range band (5-50m).
I then need to go to P72 to find
the Direct Fire Difficulty Profiles, which tells me that a rifle shot at
Medium range is Difficult. I then need to find Resolving Tasks on P9 to
find that Difficult requires 11+ on 2D6 to succeed. Now that information
could all have been included in the Direct Fire Dificulty Profiles,
simply by listing the numerical values of the rangebands, and the target
numbers of the difficulty levels, alongside their names.

TASK RESOLUTION

MegaTraveller resolves tasks by rolling 2D6, adding a Dice Modifier
(DM) and trying to get a target number or better. This is a good system
and I approve in principle. But again, many of the details are
ruinously silly. Suppose you want to make an intelligence roll.
Primary stats like Intelligence are generated by rolling 2D6.

Associated with each stat is a bonus (Dice Modifier) equal to
one-fifth of that stat rounded down. This gives us these bonuses:

Int

2 to 4

5

6 to 9

10 to 12

Retarded

Slightly retarded

Normal

Genius

Bonus

+0

+1

+1

+2

A normal or slightly retarded character gets to roll 2D6+1 for
task resolution; a genius gets to roll 2D6+2. That is, the difference
in that chances of success between a genius and someone mentally
average or even slightly mentally retarded is one point on a 2D6
roll. The difference between a high-level genius (Int 12) and someone
with severe mental retardation (Int 2) is only 2 points on 2D6.
In other words, the value of a character's Intelligence stat has
barely any influence at all over the outcome of Intelligence tests.

Sometimes a character gets to roll on a primary stat plus a
skill. Again, skills typically have values in the range 0-2, so
getting a bonus of more than +4 for your own ability is very rare,
and something like +2 is more likely to be what you get. That isn't
much as a modifer to 2D6.

The target numbers you need to roll for success go in steps of 4
points (Simple = 3+, Routine = 7+, Difficult = 11+, Formidable = 15+)
so a change of one difficulty level is usually more significant than
the stat bonuses which most characters will add. In effect, a
character's personal abilities are almost completely irrelevant to
the success or failure of a task he's attempting.

The task resolution system does have some very good ideas in it.
There is a standard system of useful task descriptions, like safe
(failure will not result in a mishap), fateful (failure will
always result in a mishap) and uncertain (outcome is largely
opinion). It's good to just be able to apply one of these standard
terms to a task. If a task fails but can be tried again, the character
must roll to stay determined or the task gets more difficult as he gives
up the will to go on. Every task that's not instant has a time increment
listed, and takes 3D6 time increments of game time to complete before
the dice are rolled to determine success. Hasty tasks have 1 level
more difficulty but take half the time; cautious tasks are one
level easier but take twice the time. All these things are great
ideas, and I wish more RPG rules systems used them.

CHARACTER CREATION

Now this is a big smelly can of worms. More than anything else, the
charcater creation system is based on good ideas that could have worked
really well, but they've been done in a completely cack-handed way that
leads unto woe and ruination.

A Note on Gender and Race: Nowhere in these rules is there
a specific requirement established that any character (player or
non-player) be of a specific gender or race. Any character is
potentially of any race and either sex.

- Introduction to Characters chapter, MegaTTraveller Players' Manual

When I first read these words, I took them to mean that a player
character may be of any species described in the rules. The word
race is commonly used for non-human aliens; for instance, the
Imperial Encyclopedia's definition of Major Race lists both
human and non-human races. But once I read the charcater creation rules
it became clear that they were intended for creating only human
characters, although this is not explicitly stated anywhere. This is a
typical example of the unclear writing that mars all of the
MegaTraveller rulebooks.

First you roll up six primary stats on 2D6: Strength, Endurance,
Dexterity, Intelligence, Education and Social Standing. Education
clearly has a major component of technical ability: rolls for technical
skills are made using Education, not Intelligence.

You also choose or roll randomly for you Homeworld. This is
not necessarily the world you grew up on, but the world you now
(ie. at the end of charcater creation) regard as your permanent
home. This will have a big effect on your character's development,
even though you might only have moved there a week ago.

Clearly the 2D6 roll for Int is not representative of the normal
spread of human ability levels. In reality, less than 1% of humans have
genius-level intelligence, and less than 1% have learning difficulties.
In MegaTraveller, when you first roll up your character, he has a 17%
chance of starting as a genius (Int 10-12) and a 28% chance of staring
with learning difficulties (Int 2-5). Now I don't know about you, but I
have no interest in playing a game about playing mentally retarded
spacemen. What possessed Marc Miller to write a game where more than one
in four starting PCs is mentally retarded? I just can't understand
it. This could equally be said for the other primary stats (except
Social Standing). I don't want to play characters who are physically
disabled. This is a problem shared by many RPGs: they let you roll
up a cripple and force you to play him.

This gives you a character at the age of 18. He then enters a
career. He may try to volunteer for a career, and if he fails to get
in then he will be drafted into one of the services. The character
creation system then follows his career through a number of 4-year
terms of service. During these terms of service, the character gets
to make all sorts of rolls for gaining skills and rank, and at the end
of it he rolls to see what he's ended up with in life in terms of money
and possessions. This then gives a character who has just finished his
first career and is now looking to start something new.

All that sounds great, and it's a good set of concepts, but as
always it's been done in a ridiculous and ill-thought-out way.

Career entry world restrictions. Most of the careers have an
entry restriction based on the type of world that the character
'comes from'. But in character creation we don't determine what type
of world a character comes from (ie. where he grew up), only
his homeworld (ie. where he now regards as home).

So which of these does Miller mean?

(A) The character's homeworld is assumed to be where he was living
at the age of 18 (even though the rules specifically say this is untrue),
and this affects what career he can enter. This certainly seems to be
implied in the rule that the draft ignores what this specific rule
calls the character's 'homeworld restrictions'.

(B) Miller is misusing language and when he says a character 'comes
from' a world he really means the character's current homeworld. A
character leaving a certain career would naturally end up living on
a world within certain specifications; so a Hunter would only end up
living on a world with game to hunt, and a Pirate would only end up
living on a world with a tech code of Early Stellar+, but this does not
mean that the character has lived there all his life. It makes sense,
but then why are draftees excepted?

I suspect that the whole concept of the character's homeworld has
been ill thought out, and different rules seem to rely variously on (A)
and (B) to make sense. Effectively, the only way to make rational
sense of these rules is to take it that they assume that the character
has spent his whole life with the same homeworld. Once you do that, all
the restrictions make complete sense. But the rules specifically state
that this is not true.

Default skills. A character gains a set of default skills
dependent on the world he 'comes from'. Again, we have to ask if this
is the same as homeworld. Unfortunately the rules do not specify when
during the character creation process he gains these skills, which seem
to have been left out of the worked example of character creation and
out of the character creation flowchart. I have always assumed that these
skills are gained at the age of 18, implying that the homeworld is the
same world on which the character grew up.

Levels of primary stats. You would think that high Intelligence,
high Social Standing, and growing up on a high-tech world would give
a character a high chance of getting a good education. But this is not
so: these factors have no effect. I can roll up a Baron (Soc 12) with
high-genius intelligence (Int 12) who grows up on the most technologically
advanced world in the Imperium, and still he can start with minimum
Education. Conversely, someone with severe learning difficulties (Int 2)
can grow up on a stone age world and still end up with Edu 12, giving
him a naturally high ability to use technology. This is utterly senseless.
You would also expect that on high-tech worlds, medical enhancements would
routinely be used to boost the stats of those born too far below average
(stats of 5 or below).

Equally, it's hard to see how a character could have maximum
Strength and minimum Endurance: what type of physique could produce
that? Of course, many other RPGs are guilty of the same stupidity.

Primary stats and career entry. At age 18, characters try to
gain entry in the career of their choice. To get in you must succeed in
a 2D6 throw with a target number. You gain bonuses for high stats,
but there is no penalty for low stats. This means you can get into the
military or law enforcement even though you're physically disabled,
or become a scientist with minimum Int and Edu. This is utterly ridiculous.

Survival. The rules say, '...during each term, a character
must
successfully throw the career's survival number or better to avoid injury
in the line of duty... Failure to successfully achieve the survival throw
forces the character to leave the service after having served only two years of the four-year term.' What on earth is the sense in this?
If a character gets injured in the line of duty, why does he have to
leave? He doesn't lose any points of his stats from the injury, so
clearly his is not discharged on medical grounds. Why isn't he just
treated and then returned to service?

And why are the chances of injury so high for non-combat careers?
A Scientist with Education 8 or less has a 17% of being injured in
the line of duty, but with Edu 9+ this drops to 3%. These numbers
make no sense at all.

It could be that the answer is that the description in the rules
is a lie, and these numbers really represent the chances of just
losing your job. The survival roll for Scientists
then makes more sense, because scientists with lower Edu will be less
valued and so more likely to be laid off. But this is unlikely to be
the true reason, because at the end of your term you have to make a
re-enlistment roll, so the possibility of losing your job is already
covered by another roll.

Skill acquirement. During each term of service you gain a
number of skill points. For each point you then choose one of four
tables to roll on, though the fourth is only available to charcaters with
Edu 8+. Some results give you a primary stat increase rather than a
skill. Scientists can only gain scientific skills from Table 4, so if you
create a Scientist with low Edu you will never be able to acquire any
scientific skills. Does that make sense?

To destruct-test the character creation system I deliberately abused
it. I decided to use the Scientist career to create a combat character.
All the skill acquirement rolls I chose to put into Table 1 (which tends
to give physical improvements) and Table 2 (which tends to give combat
skills. The character did four terms of service and got the following
skills from the skill acquirement rolls:

Now that looks more like the skill list of a special forces commando
than a scientist. He's agile, with stealth and survival skills for
infiltration, he's skilled with almost every kind of personal weapon
known to the military, and he's fairly handy with the technology as
well - he can pilot a ship's boat, spacewalk and operate space comms,
use and fix gravitics and have a crack a fixing most technology
(Jack-of-all trades). This is a gun-bunny that any power gamer would
be proud to play. Any character creation system that allows a
scientist character to be turned into this monstrosity is clearly not
working.

HOW IT SHOULD WORK

The MegaTraveller character creation system is quite complicated and
involved, yet the results it produces are utter shite. Here's how it
should work.

1. Determine the world on which the character grows up. There should
also be the option of growing up on a spaceship, not a world.

2. Roll Str, End, Dex, Int and Soc. These should not be able to
produce characters with severe disabilities.

3. Determine the character's chance of gaining medical enhancement
during childhood. The chance of this should be based on the world tech
level, with bonuses for Social Standing and need (lower stats mean
greater need).

4. Determine Education. There are bonuses for world tech level,
Intelligence and Social Standing.

5. At age 18, the character gains default skills based on the
world he's been living on.

6. At age 18, determine whether the character gets into his career
of choice. Each career should have minimum requirements which the
character must live up to. Higher stats will give bonuses.

7. If the character fails to get into his career of choice, he is
drafted. Again, he must live up to minimum entrance requirements.

8. At the start of each term of service, determine what world or
spaceship type the character is based on. He may gain default skills
for that enviromnent.

9. In each term of service in his career, the character has a
chance of being injured (unless he is in a non-violent career like
Scientist). If he is injured, roll for permanent damage to his stats.
If he is permanently injured, roll for medical correction being
supplied at the expense of the service. If, after this, the character
no longer lives up to the minimum entry requirements of the service,
he is medically discharged.

That would be no more complicated than the rules in MegaTraveller,
but it would make a hell of a lot more snese.